(no subject)
Can you remember smells and tastes as clearly as you remember images or sounds? This isn't rhetorical, honestly, can you?
I know it's said that smell is the sense that people can recall for the longest time, and it is certainly the most seemingly instinctual and immediate of senses, but can you, right now, taste a grapefruit in your mind the way you can recall the face of a lover or a song you loved years ago?
I can picture my first girlfriend quite clearly now. I can hear in my head "I Want a New Drug" by Huey Lewis quite clearly even though I haven't heard the song for years; but I can't taste the grapefruit in my mind that I ate 10 minutes ago. I could describe the taste, the smell to myself - it's tartness and sweet acidity - but this all exists in language, it lacks the connection I sense with the image of my old girlfriend or the song.
Is this about language?
I know it's said that smell is the sense that people can recall for the longest time, and it is certainly the most seemingly instinctual and immediate of senses, but can you, right now, taste a grapefruit in your mind the way you can recall the face of a lover or a song you loved years ago?
I can picture my first girlfriend quite clearly now. I can hear in my head "I Want a New Drug" by Huey Lewis quite clearly even though I haven't heard the song for years; but I can't taste the grapefruit in my mind that I ate 10 minutes ago. I could describe the taste, the smell to myself - it's tartness and sweet acidity - but this all exists in language, it lacks the connection I sense with the image of my old girlfriend or the song.
Is this about language?